Wednesday, 9 November 2016

Trump reconsidered

He likely won't be the end of the world, and is still likely to be less bad than most people think. But he will be terrible.

Two things I'd revise from my March piece at The Spinoff:

First, I had not sufficiently accounted for the harm that a vindictive President can do through the levers of the administrative agencies.

Second, I had thought that the GOP elite's hatred of Trump would prove a constraint against him: that he would face internal party opposition that would constrain some of what he might want to do. I was too optimistic on that one. The GOP elite fell into line when Trump won the candidacy. I doubt it was because they accurately forecast a Trump win. Rather, they had, I think, careerist concerns about being seen to oppose the President. That part is the scariest if we look ahead through a Trump Presidency, forecast at 81.6% as I head out from the office.